• About Me

Sci-Fi Jubilee

~ Sci-Fi News & Reviews

Sci-Fi Jubilee

Tag Archives: Tasha Lem

Doctor Who The Time of the Doctor Review

26 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by Paul Bowler in All, Doctor Who

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Clara Oswald, Cybermen, Daleks, Doctor Who, Doctor Who Christmas Special, Jenna Coleman, Matt Smith, Orla Brady, Peter Capaldi, Steven Moffat, Tasha Lem, The Doctor, The Silence, The Time of the Doctor, Trenzalore, Weeping Angels

The Time of the Doctor

Review by Paul Bowler

[Contains Spoilers]

The Time of the Doctor (K)

The 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who draws to a close as Matt Smith takes his final bow and hands over the key of the TARDIS to his successor, Peter Capaldi, in the 2013 Christmas special: The Time of the Doctor. The 2013 Christmas special, the ninth since the series returned in 2005 is also the programmes 200th episode, and it’s a seasonal spectacular packed with monsters and adventures where the Time Lord must face his darkest hour.

The fall of the eleventh is nigh and the clock is already ticking twelve’s as the Doctor (Matt Smith) arrives to whisk Clara (Jenna Coleman) away from her family Christmas diner for one last adventure, to answer the call to a distant backwater world, where the Doctor meets his old friend Tasha Lem (Orla Brady), and his deadliest enemies have also arrived having been drawn to this planet by a mysteriously indecipherable signal echoing through the depths of space.

The Time of the Doctor (m)

The Doctor must discover what this signal heralds for his fate, and that of the universe itself, as their journey takes them to the planet below, Trenzalore, the place where it is foretold the First Question will be asked and the Doctor will ultimately fall. The snow covered streets will lead to the Doctor‘s final battleground. Soon the trap is sprung, as the Daleks, Cybermen, Weeping Angels, and the Silence, begin to attack, the Time Lord stands defiant and becomes a hero to the people of this small town. The Siege of Trenzalore has begun and the Doctor; his many lives now all but spent, must make his final stand and confront the inevitability of his own mortality…

The Time of the Doctor is the third adventure in a broadly linked trilogy of stories, that began with The Name of the Doctor, and then continued spectacularly in the 50th Anniversary special The Day of the Doctor. The Time of the Doctor also marks a return to Trenzalore, the planet first mentioned in The Wedding of River Song (2011), which has since often been spoken of in hushed whispers and dark prophecies. We know Trenzalore is where the Doctor will die, his body is buried there, and in the Name of the Doctor he even saw his own tomb in the future. Dorium Maldovar told of the question that must never be answered, a religious order called the Silence are determined to ensure this never happens, and even the Great Intelligence knows the Doctor’s time was almost up.

The Day of the Doctor (L)

Having linked a severed Cyberman head “Handles” to the TARDIS console to decipher the signal coming from the unknown planet, that has left half the universe in terror, the Doctor is first confronted by the Daleks before being attacked by Cybermen and escaping in the TARDIS as the Cybership attacks, when the he suddenly gets  a call from Clara on Christmas Day. She needs help cooking the Christmas dinner for her family, so the Doctor makes a quick detour to lend a hand. After helping with lunch and meeting Clara’s family: Dad (James Buller), Linda (Elizabeth Rider), and gran (Sheila Reid), the Doctor offers Clara a respite from the festivities while the turkey cooks, and together they set off to investigate the signal coming from the planet where his enemies ships are gathering, which Handles bizarrely identifies as Gallifrey. The TARDIS is intercepted by a giant vessel of The Papal Mainframe, where they are taken aboard and greeted by the Doctor’s old friend, Tasha Lem, and her troops, Colonel Albero (Mark Brighton) and Colonel Meme (Sonita Henry). At the behest of Tasha Lem, the Doctor and Clara set out to explore a town called Christmas on the planet below, which is blanketed by a truth field, where they encounter Abramal (Rob Jarvis) and Marta (Tessa Peake Jones), and a young boy called Barnable (Rob Jarvis).

Some of the Doctor’s most feared enemies have also heeded the call to Trenzalore, gathering together on this remote world to oversee the demise of their greatest adversary. The Daleks are as formidable as ever, stalking the Doctor until the bitter end, while the Cybermen introduce a wooden upgrade to counteract the effects of the Time Lords defences. The Weeping Angels are more ruthless than ever, lurking in a snow storm, they will stop at nothing to prevent the Doctor’s escape, and  we will finally lean why the Silence is so determined to ensure that the question they have protected so incessantly is never, ever answered.

The Time of the Doctor (D)

The issue of the Doctor’s remaining regenerations is also tackled in The Time of the Doctor as he approaches the end of his natural lifespan. It is well known fact that Time Lords can only regenerate 12 times, a rule established by the 1976 story The Deadly Assassin, which over the course of a number of stories, has subsequently become so engrained in the mythology of the series that it is now the one, indefatigable rule that cannot be ignored. However, as well as the 10th Doctor’s somewhat truncated regeneration in Journey’s End (2008), since the events of The Day of the Doctor, it is the quandary posed by the introduction of the War Doctor (John Hurt), an incarnation that existed during the Time War between the Doctor’s 8th and 9th regenerations, that has now actually made  Matt Smith’s 11th Doctor the Time Lords final incarnation.

The Doctor and Clara teleport to the planet, they arrive in a town called Christmas, where the Doctor discovers a crack in time, the same one that originally featured in Season Five, where the message is being transmitted from. The message is the same question repeated over and over: “Doctor Who?” It is the question that must never be answered, it is from the Time Lords of Gallifrey – who were transported into a pocket dimension in The Day of the Doctor – and if the Doctor speaks his name they will know this is the place where they can try and return.  But if this should ever happen the alien forces circling the planet will burn this world, a world Tasha Lem informs him is Tranzalore, and that the Time War will start all over again. The Siege of Trenzalore will begin and untold chaos and destruction will be unleashed throughout the universe. The Doctor then tricks Clara and sends her back home in the TARDIS, while he remains to defend the town and enforce the stalemate.

The Time of the Doctor (0)

The Time of the Doctor starts out as a fun Christmas adventure for the Doctor and Clara, before events quickly take a darker turn, when the Doctor explains to Clara that he has no more regenerations and his time is almost up.  There are some fun moments to be had though, especially with the Doctor helping Clara to cook Christmas dinner, and meeting her family, but once the TARDIS arrives on Trenzalor a brooding air of menace begins to pervade this bizarre winter wonderland as the Doctor’s enemies prepare to strike. Tasha Lem is a very intriguing character, a being with an uncanny knowledge of the Doctor, played by  Orla Brady who gives a great perforce as the strange alien. We discover that Tasha Lem is the supremely powerful Mother Superious of the Papal Mainframe, an old friend of the Doctor, she knows him very well and is extremely loyal to him.. However, her friendship with the Doctor later proves crucial, as her will alone is strong enough to resist Dalek conditioning, especially with a little help from the Doctor and Clara after the Dalek reinforcements have arrived.

Fortunately with Clara Oswald around, the past, present, and future never  seems to be set in stone, as the Impossible Girl stubbornly refuses to be sent home, gripping the sides of the TARDIS, she forces the Time Machine to return her to the Doctor, now an old man, who has been defending Christmas and its population for over three hundred years. The Doctor explains to Clara that he has reached his final regeneration. They are transported back to the Papal Mainframe, where they learn the Silence are really genetically engineered priests, and that it was the Kovarian chapter who broke away from the Papal Mainframe to prevent the Doctor ever reaching Trenzalore by destroying his TARDIS (The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang) and engineering a child, who would grow up to be River Song (The Impossible Astronaut / The Day of the Moon / A Good Man Goes To War / Let‘s Kill Hitler / The Wedding of River Song), to assassinate  him. It seem that the Daleks have returned, Tasha and her crew have been taken over and transformed by the Daleks, but she manages to resist and helps the Doctor and Clara escape, before Clara is tricked again by the Doctor into going home for a second time.

The Time of the Doctor (E)

Back in her flat with her family after Christmas lunch, Clara hears the TARDIS return. She rushes out only to find that it was Tasha flying the TARDIS, she does not want the Doctor to die alone, and together they return to Trenzalore where Clara is reunited with the Doctor, now extremely old and facing the end of his life. He still refuses to release the Time Lords, only the Daleks now remain to oppose him, and the Doctor has been fighting them with the aid of the Silence. As the Doctor goes to the Clock Tower to face the Daleks attack, it is then that Clara desperately appeals to the Time Lords of Gallifrey through the crack in the wall, she begs them to reach out and help him as she speaks his name.

The crack in time vanished from the wall before suddenly reappearing in the sky above Trenzalore as The Time Lords bestow the Doctor with the energy of a new regenerative life cycle, which he then unleashes on his enemies to destroy them as his 13th regeneration begins. After the battle Clara goes back inside the TARDIS to find the Doctor is young again. He begins to see images of the young Amelia Pond as he waits for his regeneration and new life cycle to begin. The adult Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) appears to greet her raggedy man in his final moments. Clara watches in awe as the Time Lord rapidly regenerates into the new Doctor (Peter Capaldi), who quickly says “kidneys, I‘ve got new kidneys!” before turning to her as the Time Machine lurches in flight and asking her is she knows how to fly the TARDIS.

The Time of the Doctor (I)

Matt Smith is superb as the Doctor in this story, looking positively Troughtonesque in a new variation of his costume, delivering a show stopping performance that is simply brilliant. You get a real sense of the Time Lords plight as he is faced with the certainty of his impending death as he begins to age over the course of the episode. This time there is no more running, and nowhere to hide. Ever since Matt Smith’s gangly tweed clad, fez loving, 11th Doctor burst onto our screens with a cry of “Geronimo” he has charmed us with his carefree spirit of adventure, bow ties, jammy dodgers, and fish fingers and custard. His adventures have been some of the most complex and timey wimey in the shows history. The companions were many, Amy and Rory, River, the Paternoster Row gang, and finally Clara, were all swept up in the Doctor’s adventures. Matt Smith also managed to convey the Doctor’s great age and more alien eccentricities, enthusiastic and almost frivolous one moment, his steely gaze held centuries of wisdom that belied his youthful appearance.

Jenna Coleman is also excellent as  Clara Oswald, her journey as the Doctor’s companion has seen her life become entwined with the very fabric of the Doctor’s time line, she has meet all of the Doctor’s incarnations at one point or another, saved him on many occasions, and played a significant role in helping the Doctor remember the promise he made when he took his name so he could find another way to save Gallifrey during the Time War. I have really begun to warm to Clara as a character now, to begin with it sometimes felt like we were always meeting Clara for the first time, only to have her snatched away again before we could even get to know her. Fortunately when Clara became a full time companion in The Bells of St John (2013), we finally got to know the Impossible Girl a lot better. Jenna Coleman also had great chemistry with Matt Smith’s Doctor, her character still has plenty of potential, and it will be interesting to see how Clara adjusts to Peter Capaldi’s new Doctor.

The Time of the Doctor (2)

Steven Moffat brings the 11th Doctor’s era to a rousing, if highly complex, close with The Time of the Doctor, bringing together various plot threads, some of which reach as far back as The Eleventh Hour (2010) itself, including revelations about the Silence, the Seal of the High Council which he took from the Master in the Five Doctors, as well as revealing what the Doctor saw in The God Complex (2011) when he looked into room 11, and even the question that must never be asked is finally revealed. Director Jamie Payne skilfully balances the darker elements of the story, interspacing them with a couple of very funny moments – when the Doctor and Clara have to cook the turkey and when she later finds him naked in the TARDIS – as well as some particularly emotional scenes for the Doctor and Clara, and the final showdown is explosive and shocking. I do feel that The Time of the Doctor is a tad overlong, the regular episode length would have probably been sufficient, and the story effectively reboots the series – paving the way for an entirely new era of the show to being. Peter Capaldi also makes a strong debut as the new Doctor, the rogues gallery of monsters bring added menace to this Christmas episode, and Matt Smith’s heartrending final moments as the Doctor will resonate long after the credits have rolled. The Time of the Doctor is a brilliant Christmas special, it rounds off the 50th Anniversary celebrations of Doctor Who in fine style, and provides a triumphant finale for this youngest ever incarnation of the Doctor.

Images Belong To BBC

Follow @paul_bowler

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • WhatsApp
  • More
  • Tumblr
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Skype

Like this:

Like Loading...

Search Sci-Fi Jubilee

Follow @paul_bowler
Follow Sci-Fi Jubilee on WordPress.com

Enter your email address to follow SciFi Jubilee and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Sci-Fi Jubilee RSS Links

RSS Feed RSS - Posts

Recent Posts

  • BATMAN: WHITE KNIGHT PRESENTS RED HOOD #1 REVIEW
  • DETECTIVE COMICS #1062 REVIEW
  • BATMAN #125 REVIEW
  • DOCTOR WHO ORIGINS #1 REVIEW
  • Sci-Fi Jubilee 10th Anniversary!
  • AQUAMAN ANDROMEDA #1 REVIEW
  • New Thor: Love and Thunder Trailer!
  • KING SPAWN #10 REVIEW

Top Posts & Pages

  • About Me
    About Me
  • Skyfall: Movie Review
    Skyfall: Movie Review
  • All New X-Men #17 Review
    All New X-Men #17 Review
  • Earth 2 #17 Review
    Earth 2 #17 Review
  • Marvel's New: Avengers Age of Ultron Trailer
    Marvel's New: Avengers Age of Ultron Trailer
  • Green Arrow #1 Review
    Green Arrow #1 Review
  • Future State Nightwing #1 Review
    Future State Nightwing #1 Review
  • Godzilla: World of Monsters Review
    Godzilla: World of Monsters Review
  • DETECTIVE COMICS #1062 REVIEW
    DETECTIVE COMICS #1062 REVIEW
  • BATMAN: WHITE KNIGHT PRESENTS RED HOOD #1 REVIEW
    BATMAN: WHITE KNIGHT PRESENTS RED HOOD #1 REVIEW

Calendar

August 2022
M T W T F S S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
293031  
« Jul    

Categories

  • All
  • Avengers vs X-Men
  • BOOM! Studios
  • Dark Horse Comics
  • DC Comics
  • Doctor Who
  • Dr Who (Classic Series)
  • Dynamite Entertainment
  • Film Reviews
  • IDW Publishing
  • IF? Commix
  • Image Comics
  • Marvel Comics
  • Movie Articles
  • Paul Bowler YouTube Channel
  • Playstation 3
  • The Walking Dead
  • Titan Comics
  • Trailers & Posters
  • Vertigo

Gravatar Profile

Paul Bowler

Paul Bowler

Writer / Blogger / Sci Fi geek, fan of Doctor Who, The Walking Dead, Movies, Comic Books, and all things Playstation 4.

Personal Links

  • Sci-Fi Jubilee
  • Twitter @paul_bowler
  • Sci-Fi Jubilee Facebook
  • Paul Bowler YouTube

View Full Profile →

Follow Me On Twitter

Twitter @paul_bowler

Archives

  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012

Blogroll

  • Flodo's Page
  • Learn WordPress.com
  • Sci-Fi Jubilee
  • TARDIS Tweets
  • The Consulting Detective
  • The Gotham Rogue
  • The Knights Blog
  • Theme Showcase
  • WordPress Planet
  • WordPress.com News

Sci-Fi Jubilee

13th Doctor All New X-Men Andrez Bergen Avengers Batman Batmobile Brian Michael Bendis Bruce Wayne Charlie Adlard Chris Chibnall Clara Oswald comics Cybermen Cyclops Daleks Danny Miki DC Comics Doctor Strange Doctor Who Dr Who Dr Who Season 7 Earth 2 FCO Plascencia Frank Martin Gotham Gotham City Greg Capullo Hawkgirl Horror IDW Publishing IF? Commix Image Comics Iron Man James Tynion IV Jean Grey Jenna-Louise Coleman Jenna Coleman Jim Gordon Jodie Whittaker Marvel Marvel Comics Matt Lucas Matt Smith Michonne Mike Deodato Nardole NCBD Negan Nicola Scott Paul Bowler YouTube Peter Capaldi Peter Parker PS4 Rick Grimes Robert Kirkman Sci-Fi Jubilee Scott Snyder Spider-Man Star Wars Steven Moffat Stuart Immonen Superman TARDIS The Doctor The Flash The Joker The New 52 The Saviors The Walking Dead Tony Stark Trevor Scott Walkers Wolverine X-Men Zombies

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Sci-Fi Jubilee
    • Join 1,350 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Sci-Fi Jubilee
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: